Columns:: Newsmakers

since 12/15/98

Columns::January 28, 2002

State budget proposal includes pay raises, other UGA priorities
Former White House chief of staff to speak at annual conference
Computational Center director wins chemistry award
UGA celebrates the life, legacy of Martin Luther King
Beyond description
Student ‘ambassadors’ visit area high schools
Signed, sealed, and delivered
A dollar could have bought a lot more
Vet medicine professor puts the bite on infectious animal diseases
Administrative Changes
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Campus News

Newsmakers

Loving Rumi
The Web magazine Salon.com interviewed UGA’s Coleman Barks about Afghan and American appreciation for the works of the 13th-century Persian poet Jelaluddin Rumi.
Rumi is both a bestselling poet in the United States and the one most often played on Afghan radio stations, according to Barks. “[Rumi] has always been able to embrace a wide band of seekers,” Barks told Salon.com.

Vaudeville on the Internet

The Associated Press reported that the University of Georgia is using digital technology and live performances for a “virtual vaudeville” project that will put 19th-century song-and-dance on the Internet. The project, made possible by a $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, is a cooperative effort among several colleges throughout the United States. “It will look like a really good computer game,” David Saltz, drama professor and leader of the project, told AP. “It’s basically using computer-game technology for an artistic and scholarly purpose.”

Vulnerable food
The New York Times reported on the ease with which the nation’s food supply could be the target of a terrorist attack. The Times quoted Michael P. Doyle, director of UGA’s Center for Food Safety, who said that a variety of virulent bacteria and viruses could be used to contaminate food. The most likely weapons, he said, are E. coli O157, salmonella typhi, dysenteria, cyclospora and hepatitis A. “The threat is real, and more real in some types of food,” Doyle said. “Fresh-cut produce scares the heck out of me.” Similar stories were carried by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Scripps Howard News Service, the Associated Press, Newsweek, and Time. Doyle contends the greatest vulnerability is with ready-to-eat food, like luncheon meats, which are consumed right out of the package. He said those dangers could be easily countered if consumers would cook such packaged foods. Even the hardiest pathogens are killed at 160 degrees Fahrenheit, he said. At the very least, he said, peel or wash everything, and if possible boil it for 10 minutes.
“Is there a risk? Definitely,” said Doyle. “But do I think there could be an incident with a high rate of mortality? No. That’s unlikely. Someone could make a lot of people sick, but it wouldn’t be devastating.”
Food processors have been re-examining security at their plants, a process that will continue in coming months. Most big food companies already have good security programs in place at their facilities, Doyle told Reuters.

Engineering a pantry
Some researchers are looking for better ways to store fresh foods, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The kitchen of the future might include high-tech fruit bowls that keep apples fresh, but not cold and hard, and climate-controlled pantries that let bananas ripen but won’t turn them brown. The newspaper quoted Brahm Verma, a biological and agricultural engineer at UGA who is developing the pantry’s “smart” control system. He said its storage options will surpass those of even the most advanced refrigerators. “Once the consumer says he or she wants to have a tomato ripe three days from now, the model understands how to adjust the temperature and make the tomato ripen three days later,” he said.

Kim Osborne of the UGA News Service monitors coverage of UGA in local, state and national media. Contact her for information about these or other stories in the news. Newsmakers appears in every other issue of Columns.

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